


Becoming Animagi

by somewhereinthesun



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animagus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 10:29:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13074975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somewhereinthesun/pseuds/somewhereinthesun
Summary: James and Sirius become animagi, play some fetch, hug Remus, and surprise Lily Evans. Would you expect anything less?





	Becoming Animagi

**Author's Note:**

> I had no plans to write anything for this prompt, but then this happened. I just went with it, as you do sometimes. I’m so out of practice on writing regularly that the feeling still feels brand new. :)

It was Sirius who managed it first, but only by an hour or two. Years after, if asked for one of their greatest memories of all of the adventures they had together, becoming animagi together would remain the answer. It was a pivotal moment not only in their development from children to young men, but in the evolution of their very friendship. Close as brothers when they started their journey towards illegally transfiguring themselves, their bond after was sacred and unyielding.

Three months into fifth year, two days after a full moon, there was a lightning storm. Remus was still in the hospital, Peter had not returned from detention with Professor Sprout from a prank in class gone awry. Sirius and James snuck out of the castle under the invisibility cloak. It was not past curfew - most people were at dinner, so the use of the cloak was a bit unnecessary. But it added an element of mystique to the proceedings, and if there was one thing that the boys could appreciate together, it was the added flare.

They headed straight to the Quidditch field, putting up Alertness Charms as they went that Remus had found and suggested they learn if they wanted to be successful at this ridiculous endeavor. He had long ago stopped trying to talk James and Sirius out of their plan. Instead, sometime in third year, he had stopped ignoring their schemes and adopted the role of research assistant. He devoted most of his time not consumed by Prefect duties and homework to coming up with new spells that would aid the other boys. Most of the time it meant helping Peter, who lacked the natural gumption that fueled most of Potter and Black’s successes. 

The weather was atrocious. Rain pelted down on the two figures and the and bent the trees into gruesome stick figures, shedding the last of their leaves in an angry shake. “Lovely day for a stroll, isn’t it, mate!?” Sirius threw his arm around James’s shoulder and raised his face to the sky, feeling the rain beat down on his cheeks and wet his hair. James grinned and crowed a whoop of delight. 

The two boys were already soaking wet and James could barely see thanks to the rain running down in sheets on his glasses. His thick, wiry hair stuck up in giant, wet poofs all of his head, making him look like a tall, gangly troll. Sirius, who was broader but not taller than James, could feel his longer, shaggier hair curl up around his shoulders as it dripped down onto his shoulders.

“Do you have your potion?” James asked and spun around them in a circle, securing the last of their protective wards against anyone who would be stupid enough (like them) to be out in the middle of the storm. A roll of thunder answered him and Sirius laughed manically, high on adrenaline and risk. He groped in his damp pocket for the small vial and showed it to James.

“Mate, this is it. You’re ready.” James gripped onto Sirius’s arm, in an attempt to calm his friend, who suddenly looked slightly putrid green, but also to comfort himself. “We have arrived!”

They had never been this close. There had been a failed attempt last year and the abysmal failure over the summer. The summer’s failure had humbled the boys and they had resolved to each other then that their next attempt would be different. It would be better. It would be controlled. It would be focused. And now they could feel the difference in the air. While damp and slightly chilly, there was a crackle of energy on the wind, occasionally erupting into actual lightning overhead. 

Sirius took a deep breath and then pulled out his wand. James said nothing as the other boy concentrated on the words he needed to say, the words he had been reciting at sunrise and sunset for the better part of four months, ever since their disastrous attempt in August, and then pointed his wand straight at his heart. 

_“Amato Animo Animato Animagus!”_

James then handed him the potion. “Cheers, brother!” He thumped Sirius on the back and took a step back. Sirius popped the cork from the vial and downed it in one swig.

At first, nothing happened. Then, with a clap of thunder roaring overhead and the buzzing of a tripped Alertness Charm, Sirius screamed. His body began to morph from its human shape. Limbs twisted in unnatural ways, cracking bones. Hair began to sprout everywhere, as dark and as thick as Sirius’s long, dark curls. James couldn’t move. His mind whirred with adrenaline and excitement. He wanted to run to check on the buzzing from the Alertness Charm, but he also felt like screaming right along with Sirius. He did neither. He was unable to take his eyes from the gruesome sight in front of him. 

Sirius’s scream died on his tongue as he fell to the ground, his head elongating and disappearing in a dizzying spread of fur. His body was mutilated past the point of recognition, half human, half beast. James could see now it wasn’t hair after all, but fur and it was everywhere. Even as Sirius was shrinking in height, but not girth, the fur kept coming. Huge pads erupted from palms of his hand, which braced his fall to all fours.

The Alertness Charm buzzed again, this time closer. James had no choice this time but to turn away from the carnage in front of him and run back along their path, through the clump of trees that separated the pitch from the school. 

“Lumos!” His wand’s tip erupted into a beacon of light and he held it up high, shining the light into the shadows of the small glenn. The path to the school snaked up the hill and out of sight. In the middle of it something froze. It was an animal of some kind. James hissed and approached, trying to scare it away. Closer, he could tell it was a small deer of some kind, perhaps not more than a few years old. The antlers on its head were not fully formed. It did not move, but regarded him with an interested expression and then turned, heading into the thickest part of the clump of trees and disappearing.

From down on the Quidditch field, James heard a deep bark. Whirling around again, he sprinted back down towards the pitch, searching for Sirius. Instead of the convulsing, mutilated body James had left stood a gigantic black dog. He was enormous, easily the size of the small Shetland pony that had lived in James’s back garden growing up. Absolutely covered in black fur, the dog barked again and lunged at James, who fell to his knees and through his arms around the animal. The fur felt different than regular dog hair, almost like human hair but with fur’s consistency. 

“Sirius! You did it! This is…” He drew back to look into the dog’s face. The eyes were a dark brown, but danced with humor only James Potter would recognize. The dog sniffed at James’s face and then licked him with a huge pink tongue. 

James laughed and pushed the dog away from his face. “Merlin, man, don’t kiss me. I know where that tongue’s been.” The dog grinned at him and then threw its head back and barked. Another clap of lightning sounded and James stood up, looking up at the sky. The dog ran around his feet, yipping and barking, making a right old racket. At James’s full height, the dog came up to almost his waist. Not expecting it, the dog jumped up to put its paws on James’s shoulders and was almost tall enough that James did not have to look down very far to see into its face. 

“Easy, boy,” James said, his voice tight with affection. He was so proud of Sirius that he almost couldn’t talk. They had done it. Their plan was actually possible. Remus would not have to be alone again. At the very least, Sirius could be with him for every future transformation. The enormity of their success wrapped him in a cocoon of emotion and he reached up to pet the dog’s face again, rubbing his ears like he would any house pet.

Sirius - the dog - barked and dropped back to its front paws and then nuzzled James’s pocket where his own potion was ready to go. James pulled it out and examined the contents, then raised his head to the sky. There had been a lull in the storm and the rain had ceased in the excitement of Sirius’s own transformation and James needing to investigate the glenn. 

“Think I should give it a go? It’s not the beginning of the storm anymore.” 

The dog whined and then ran around James in a big circle, barking. James laughed and then pulled out his wand and the Snitch he always carried it. He transfigured the snitch into a big rubber ball and then chucked it into the air, watching it soar across the pitch towards one of the far goal posts. Sirius howled and bolted after the ball, tail tucked behind his legs as he took off, trying out his new form.

James could not let himself feel disappointed about not being able to attempt his own transformation tonight. Their years of hard work had paid off. It was not often in James’s life, nor would happen often in the future, that he felt overwhelmingly proud of the work he had done. But in this moment, he did. He watched Sirius catch the ball in his mouth and dart back towards him. And he laughed. It had begun to rain again and he threw his head back and he laughed as the rain poured down around him and the sounds of a happy dog filled the air.

Almost an hour later, the storm had ended but the rain had not. Sirius had finally grown tired of playing fetch and had joined James in the first row of the Quidditch stands. The Snitch had been transfigured back from a ball to its original form and James threw it up into the sky and then jumped up to retrieve it. He felt drunk on their success every time he looked down at the dog laying at his feet. 

It was now getting late, growing darker by the minute, and James wondered if they should head back to school. He was almost hesitant to suggest it, not wanting to ruin the momentous occasion but also desperately wanting to fill Remus and Peter in on the events of their evening. 

“What do you think, boy?” James leaned down and stroked the dog’s ears. “Think we should head on back?”

At the suggestion, the dog growled and shook its great head. Overhead, a clap of thunder rumbled and James instantly glanced at the sky. Dark clouds, which had felt just like encroaching darkness, had rolled in from the west and lent an eery feeling to the deserted pitch. 

“I think it might storm again,” James whispered, hope and excitement both leaping together in his chest. He pulled out his own potion and held it up to the dog’s face. As if to answer his summation, lightning flashed and James could see the reflection in the dog’s big, brown eyes. Sirius started to howl and James began to laugh again. “Okay, let’s try!”

It was hours later when James and Sirius finally donned the invisibility cloak and slunk back up the hill to the school. James had, with little doubt once he had watched his best friend do it for himself, mastered the animagus form and had transformed into a gigantic stag. 

They were drunk on youth, ambition, success, and luck. Thus, as they stumbled back into the Great Hall, an hour past curfew and most of their long legs sticking out of the bottom of the invisibility cloak, it could have been a disastrous end to their evening had they been found by anyone other than Lily Evans and Remus Lupin.

However, since that fateful night was no one’s but theirs, disaster was averted. James slid the cloak from their frames at the sight of Remus descending the stairs and waved. Sirius bobbed on his feet with palpable excitement.

“Remus!” Sirius hollered, charging forward towards their friend. “We did it!”

Remus, who had been talking in low murmurs to Lily Evans, froze. He looked instantly to James for confirmation, who nodded as he bounded up the stairs after Sirius and pulled Remus into a tight hug.

“It’s true, mate. Every word.” Too enthralled with their success, he barely remembered Evans until after he had let go of him. Instantly, his hand went to his hair. Ever since the beginning of that year, Lily Evans had made him nervous.

“Uh, hey there, Evans.”

She frowned at him in response. “Potter. Black. You two are out after curfew. Remus, I really don’t think we can just let them…” She turned to Remus, who was still speechless and was now almost sagging against Sirius. Whatever color he had regained from surviving another full moon was gone. 

“Remus?” Her eyes went to Sirius and then they narrowed. “Black, what did you mean, ‘you did it?’ Did what exactly?”

Sirius beamed. “Changed the course of history, Evans! We’re…we’re Marauders!” He pulled at Remus, clutching him now around the waist with one hand. Remus had apparently lost all powers of speech. “Come on, pal. We’ll show you ourselves. Right now. We just need to go and collect poor Pete from purgatory down in the greenhouses.”

“But it’s after curfew…!” Lily began, but Sirius wasn’t listening as he pulled Remus towards the door leading out of the Great Hall. James cut in.

“Look, Evans…” He paused. The enormity of what he and Sirius had achieved that night hit him squarely in the face. James had thought he knew the consequences well enough when they had come to their decision all of those years ago about becoming Animagi, but they had been children. He was older now, maybe not a man yet, but clearly someone who was now required to wrestle with the consequences the actions of his youth brought. 

Lily watched Sirius and Remus disappear outside and then looked up at James, her frown deep and disturbed. “Tell me, Potter, why I should not confiscate your invisibility cloak and march you straight to Professor Dumbledore’s office myself? I am never surprised by your audacity, but your brazen disrespect for the rules and your willingness to allow your friends to be swept up along with you is disgusting.”

On a normal evening, this would have made James at once disappointed and angry at the same time. But tonight her words did little to goad him. He was too busy riding the high of their triumph and basking in Remus’s stunned reaction. It felt too good. Everything would be okay from here on out.

“Evans, can I ask you something?” He bent over to retrieve the cloak that had fallen to his feet when he had hugged Remus. “Have you ever done something for a friend that would change their life? For the better? And you didn’t do it because someone told you to or because it would be a good laugh? But because you knew it would help them in ways - huge ways - and they would never ask you to do it but you know it’s the right thing and you did it anyway?” Words tumbled out of him at her and he finally shut his mouth, or otherwise he would have kept going. 

Her face fell in shock at his honesty and without thinking, she nodded. Then she realized what she had done and blushed, breaking eye contact with him and looking at her feet. 

Potter grinned. “Well, to answer your question, I can’t tell you what I did tonight because it’s not my secret to tell. But I can tell you that I made Remus’s life better. His life, after tonight, will never be the same. You don’t have to understand - or even believe me! - but if you like Remus at all, you’ll let us have this one night.” He folded his arms across his chest and smiled at her. 

Lily shook her head at him, in annoyance, dismay, and a touch of bemusement. “Good grief, Potter. Get out of here. Before I start to think you’re pulling my leg to get out of trouble.”

James reached for her, impulsively, and drew her into a brief hug and then kissed her on the cheek. He didn’t realize he was doing it until the deed had been done and then it was his turn to blush and her turn to stammer. “Uh…thanks, Evans! Later!” Bolting down the stairs, he whipped the door open and disappeared into the dark night. 


End file.
